The present invention is related to a manifold for oil purifiers or refiners and, in particular, to a system wherein multiple refiners are interconnected by means of the manifold to form a single unit and wherein the manifold also forms a support structure for the refiners.
Oil refiners are used to remove particulate, liquid, volatile, and other contaminants from oil after the oil has been used by the various type engines and, in particular, large engines of the type used on ocean going vessels or heavy operating equipment. Conventional refiners are often of variable sizes so as to be compatible with various sized engines or various oil flows associated with such engines. Unfortunately, it is costly to manufacture and stock oil refiners having a wide range of sizes. It has also been found that as the size of oil refiner increases, it becomes increasingly and disproportionately labor intensive to provide service to the larger refiners. In fact, the larger refiners often require additional service crew members to change filter media associated with the refiner or provide other service thereto. It has also been found that, as a refiner increases in size, there is a much greater likelihood that damage will occur to seals associated with the refiner during servicing or that the refiner will be improperly reassembled after servicing.
Therefore, according to the present invention, a refiner having only a single uniform size is preferably provided for use with essentially any engine or oil flow. This refiner is ganged to provide suitable contaminant removal from oil flows too large for a single refiner to handle. For example, the single oil refiner may be designed to handle an oil flow from an engine having a 25 gallon oil capacity under average operating conditions. Thus, an engine having a capacity of 100 gallons of oil is provided with 4 such refiners ganged together. Of course the single refiner is viable for removing contaminants from oil in any engine having a capacity less than 25 gallons of oil.
The above discussed ganging of oil refiners has been found to function best when the refiners are grouped together such that they may be installed as a single unit. For this purpose a manifold has been provided which links the various inlet and outlets of the refiners together respectively such that a single conduit may connect each of the flows to and from the engine to all of the refiners. In addition it has been found that the manifold may also function as a supporting mechanism for the refiners. In particular, the supporting mechanism comprises a tubular support member having chambered portions which chambered portions function as a manifold for distributing to and collecting oil from the refiners. Preferably the support member is a self-standing structure such that the entire unit may be easily and quickly positioned and secured as a whole at the site of an engine requiring oil refining by relatively simple connection of the inlet and outlet conduits to the engine. Cost of such multiple units is relatively low since they may be mass produced without changes in the production line for various sizes. Spare storage costs are also less since one size fits all and the refiners are relatively simple and require relatively little labor to change out or service. In addition, if one refiner is damaged, cost of replacement thereof is relatively inexpensive compared to a single large unit.